“We're simply making pure music,” Lloyd Swanton – bassist of The Necks, one of the most celebrated Australian cult bands in the modern era – tells me.
It’s a word that comes up a lot in descriptions of the work of this Australian avant-garde jazz trio. Pure. For a band whose live performances are always improvised, striving for purity is perhaps the only way through the music. The curtains open, The Necks appear, and in front of them is a blank page of a stage, ready to be filled with sound and texture.
For Lloyd Swanton, who has been playing in The Necks with fellow bandmates Chris Abrahams (piano and Hammond organ) and Tony Buck (drums, percussion and electric guitar) since 1987, making pure music is simply his job.
The Necks
- Friday, January 31, from 7.30pm
- Melbourne Recital Centre
- Tickets here
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“[We make it] for the experience of playing the music and for the audience’s experience of listening to it,” he says. “Beyond that, it’s whatever people want to do with it.”
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Friday, January 31 will see The Necks take over the Elisabeth Murdoch Hall stage at Melbourne Recital Centre in celebration of their latest album, Bleed. While the trio are ushering in a new collection of music at this show, they’re also ushering in a new wave of fans.
As a band that’s been performing for almost 40 years, it’s no surprise that The Necks have been around for long enough to see a generational shift in the tide of their audiences. “We’ve got the generation that grew up with us, but now we’ve also got their kids and their grandkids in Australia,” Lloyd says.
“We’ve had people come up and say, ‘My parents told me that I was conceived to your first record,’” he laughs. For the uninitiated, The Necks’ debut record is – fittingly, for those specific fan’s experiences of listening to it – titled Sex. Released in 1989, the album consists of one titular track.
Almost four decades on now, while the three young musos then in their late twenties may have changed in many ways, when it comes to the mission at the core, little has.
“We’re not making our music to become famous,” Lloyd says. “We’re absolutely chuffed that it’s gained such recognition, [but] we’re not trying to create music for a particular purpose or market. I think that’s maybe why we’re still going and we’re still talking to each other and people still like us, because there’s a certain integrity to what we do and it hasn’t changed.”
An almost-40-year long trust fall
At each The Necks show, audiences are exposed to a fresh journey of improvisation. The limitlessness of infinite sound-spatial possibilities opens up for the trio each time they step onto the stage. As horrifyingly daunting as that sounds to some, these masters know what they’re doing.
“You just have to trust in the system that we have,” Lloyd says about improvisation. “You just have to trust that you will be able to dig deep and find something within yourself. And you also have to trust that if you specifically aren’t able to come up with anything inspiring, one of the other guys will.”
Lloyd makes it sound easy and makes it look effortless, as masters of their crafts tend to do. For this trio, though, if the hardest part is building trust within the band, everything else seems to naturally fall into place.
Evolving soundscapes with a core of integrity
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“Essentially our concept is based around the notion that all we need to go somewhere with our music is one halfway decent idea,” he says. “You know, in terms of probability, three functioning human brains… one of them should be able to come up with something at any given time,” he adds.
“Ordinarily functioning human beings in ordinary circumstances, [we] should be able to come up with something. And then half an hour later, you know, you’re in the most wondrous area that you just wouldn’t have imagined possible.”
It’s this rich desire to explore undiscovered sonic territory through their music that has perhaps sustained the success of this beloved band over the years. Every time The Necks play, they’re trying something new, seeking out unheard sounds, finding unthought ways to put them together. They’ve always been evolving, and yet the core of what they do – that strive for purity – has never changed.
“When I listen back to our early recordings, I can hear that that’s us,” Lloyd reflects. “But I can also hear that it’s a younger us.” He pauses. “I’d say getting older is actually a lovely thing. If you’ve still got your mental and physical functions, you’ve just got more and more things to draw on.”
“I’m thinking about the meaning of music all the time”
“Of course, you lose the youthful enthusiasm and exuberance,” Lloyd continues, “but you also just get some kind of perspective. I’m thinking about the meaning of life, the meaning of aging and the meaning of music all the time. And fortunately, most of my answers are positive.”
A near four decades of music is no small feat for any band. For The Necks, however, it’s business as usual, and it will remain so for as long as their bodies allow. “I feel like in every physical and mental respect, I’m declining, except in terms of playing music, where the exact opposite is happening. I’m feeling physically better and mentally better and sort of intellectually better than I’ve ever felt in my life,” he tells me.
“If this goes on the way it is going on, eventually I’ll just be a complete vegetable,” Lloyd continues, “except when I’m playing my instrument, in which I’ll be this sort of fountain of youth. You just gotta keep that childlike sense of wonder and curiosity.”
You can get tickets to see The Necks play at Melbourne Recital Centre on Friday January 31 here.
This article was made in partnership with Melbourne Recital Centre.
